When she finished writing the novel at the colony, she went for a swim. She swam with another novelist and a short story writer. Later an essayist joined the group, and he told them about his new piece on quinoa.
She left the pool and dried herself, listening to talk of quinoa. She told no-one of her novel.
Back in her room she wrote a letter to a man who stole a toucan for her. You were not thinking of me when you stole a toucan, she wrote, and laughed so the folds of her stomach rippled. You shot it for yourself, just like I write for myself and not for you, because you aren’t a reader and you think didactic has something to do with the dinosaurs.
She poured pineapple juice into her wine glass and looked again at the last page of her novel. The concluding paragraph with descriptions of sky and surf, the light across the bay, the evening fireflies. Unholy and majestic, the protagonist said.
After juice she wrote the last paragraph of her letter to the toucan man. In conclusion, I want to say the weather here is stunning. It has inspired me, unlike some things I saddled myself with. A pack of fireflies near the shower hut stays constant and is a treasure. I often sit at my window and watch the home of a fellow novelist. She is from Nebraska and has lived alone for the last eight years of her life. She is the happiest novelist I’ve ever met, and she’s kind. Yesterday she hugged me in the garden and told me how my dedication to my book inspired her work on her own. Quickly I told her of how she had moved me to leave an unfulfilling relationship with a man senior only in age, and she told me not to speak of you like that, but to celebrate your good points, and I told her about the toucan. She didn’t say anything, but just touched her face with a sigh.